George Gamow

Gamow (Gamow) George Antonovich (George) - in the name of our science almost forgotten. Meanwhile, in the early 1930s, he "stood" in physics, just above the recognized genius Landau. Already at 24 years he performed the work of Nobel level, developed the theory of alpha decay, one of the four types of radioactivity. In 28 years, George Gamow became the youngest member of the Academy of Sciences in the entire history of its existence. But Gamow in 1933 and became the first scientist-defector, who, despite solemn promises, did not return to the USSR from foreign trips. After that, his name has been subjected to official oblivion. But it is not an act that has become an example for many Soviet and then Russian scientists, perhaps not even aware of, whose road they follow.

Contrary to the popular myth that the Russian genius in exile shrinking due to homesickness, George Gamow, which quickly expelled from the USSR Academy of Sciences (also the first such case, then even Sakharov AN left), in the West continued to work actively and successfully . Since 1934 he is professor at the University of Washington in Washington. In 1936, together with the future father of the hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, he summarizes the theory of another type of radioactivity - beta decay. To work on the atomic project Gamow did not attract due to questionable for Americans, but on the hydrogen bomb in 1949, after a thorough check on the loyalty he has visited and worked at Bikini Atoll, US nuclear test site.

Gamow was one of the brightest stars in astrophysics and cosmology. He first calculated the model stars with thermonuclear reactions, proposed a model of a shell of a red giant, explored the role of neutrinos in the outbursts of novae and supernovae. He created the theory of the formation of chemical elements by neutron capture. After the war, he put forward a bold, but now generally accepted theory of "hot universe", which implies the existence of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which was formed at the time of the Big Bang. Theory of Gamow was confirmed experimentally by the Americans by Penzias and Wilson, who in 1978 became Nobel laureates.

In 1954, Gamow published an article where the first sets of genetic code problem, arguing that "the combination of 4 triplets of nucleotides are obtained 64 combinations, which is enough to" recording of genetic information. "In 1968, Americans Holly Quran and Nirenberg received the Nobel Prize for deciphering the genetic code. The prizes were awarded after the death of George Gamow August 20, 1968.

1928-1931 years he spent in the best research centers - Gottingen, Copenhagen, Cambridge, has received a Rockefeller scholarship. His research inspired the triumph of the proletarian poet Demian poor verses, published in "Pravda", "Soviet name the country of murderers and cads wonder Here is an example:... Soviet guy Gamow What do you want from a sort of people already got down to the atom, villain?" Call George Gamow "Soviet Man" was possible only through ignorance. He came from an old family, his grandfather was a commander of the Odessa Military District, another - Metropolitan. Father with the rank of state councilor taught at the Odessa High School, among his pupils was the future leader of the world revolution, Leon Trotsky. Gamow was fluent in six languages ??and portraying itself not a Soviet man, but rather a European intellectual.

As a student at Leningrad University around Gamow (nicknamed Johnny) cobble together a jazz band, which included future Nobel Prize winner Lev Landau (Dow), Dmitry Ivanenko (Dimus), Matvei Bronstein (Abbot, shot in 1936). Jazz bands invented the cosmopolitan style of communication that has spread among the intellectuals in the 1960s, in the era of debate about "physicists and lyrics". At the jazz band was the motto - "do not be famous ugly." Published the journal "Physics Scum", parades wit, erudition constantly checked. At the center of this world was physics. And, for example, Ivanenko lost his place in the jazz band when Landau questioned his scientific genius and fluff criticized ( "philology, twaddle") other theoretical studies. Gamow studied brilliantly, but limping under the Constitution of the USSR and the history of the world revolution.

The tendency to practical jokes, George Gamow in America retained. Once he persuaded a future Nobel laureate Bethe put the signature under the article about the Big Bang, which he wrote together with Alpher. In Greek, the collective signature look great - Alpher-Bethe-Gamow. Incidentally, in the US, despite a close friendship with the creators of the hydrogen bomb Hungarian Teller and Ulam Pole, he was not allowed to the atomic project, too, for a ridiculous reason. In 1924 Gamow taught physics at the Artillery School and formally listed as commander of the Red Army.

In 1932, Gamow along with Landau, who had by then returned from a trip abroad, but not with such fanfare, tried to make a revolution in academic physics. (Landau was a true "Soviet man", walking around Copenhagen in a red shirt to put on, and a red jacket, but then it would have taken for a waiter.) Gamow and Landau in all corners of the noise that the previous generation of physicists do not understand anything in physics and necessary create a new Institute of theoretical physics under their leadership. (It`s funny that such an institution exists today is Landau`s name.) But then there was a stir and scandal - of course, they were not given any institution. Landau went to Kharkov. A Gamow took over other concerns.

He married a beautiful and glamorous woman (the nickname - Po). According to Kapitsa, this "adventurer" developed in Gamow "antisocial traits." At that moment it ceased to indulge in trips abroad. Despite letters of famous Marie Curie, Fermi, Pauli, he was not allowed on the 1st International Congress of the atomic nucleus, and its report was read Delbruck. With the work of any complexity: the lectures he was forbidden to talk about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, because it is contrary to the public philosophy of dialectical materialism.

Johnny`s Po began to seek a way to the West. We try to get to Turkey by kayak from the Crimea. Searched Finnish border on skis. Nothing worked. Finally, under the mediation of Bukharin Gamow he was received by the Chairman of People`s Commissars Molotov. Miracle wrote Gamow, has come to pass: he was given a foreign passport and - most improbable - to issue a passport to his wife. Gamow asked Molotov to give it the same status as Kapitsa: the ability to constantly work abroad, with a Soviet passport. I personally vouched for Gamow his teacher Academician Joffe and French physicist, an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Paul Langevin.

From abroad Gamow in the USSR did not come back. In 1934 Kapitsa at the next visit to the Soviet Union to the West is no longer released. Gamow categorically denied that was the reason. Previously Kapitsa believed that the birthplace of man is the place where it works well. He spoke about Gamow very sharply: "Johnny - type of unscrupulous self-seekers, a gifted mind for exceptional scientific work, but in general people are not smart." Kapitsa wrote to his wife: "Johnny took pride as the first young famous scientist head of the government blesses him on the journey, and he, the villain will not be refunded What attracts him in the West, in the capitalist countries Johnny would never play first violin, and except in the..? America, he was nowhere to get. " But Anna A. (her father, a prominent shipbuilder Academician Krylov also lured the Soviet Union and the West is no longer produced) belonged to Johnny sympathetically.

Lost whether the country Gamow, holding in his arms Kapitsa? Unknown. It is not known and whether its failure to return it provoked a long-term quarantine regime for the "Iron Curtain" that separated the power of our science from the world of science. It is possible, Gamow had a presentiment of its inevitability.

What he found in the country far away? In America, George Gamow wrote a number of fundamental works. But Kapitsa forecast justified: Gamow not canonized, despite the obvious merits and brilliant talent, his Nobel Prize bypassed. The largest scientific award - the UNESCO Prize for the Popularization of Science, where he did not know equal since the time of the student "Offal science", from which originated the famous Soviet collections "Physicists joke."

Beautiful wife of Gamow in America has gone. He moved to a provincial university. According to rumors, I drank a lot in recent years. He died in 1968, almost simultaneously with the other youth Landau. In 1990, George Gamow returned posthumously the title of the Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member.

The fact that George Gamow and his friend Stanislaw Ulam gave the Soviet Union the secret of the hydrogen bomb, only rumors. No evidence for this is not.